Will she grow out of it?

[DesperatePunchbag]

I’m desperate for help with my 3.5 year old DD who has become a violent nightmare.

She is our second child - DS is now 7 and a relatively placid child who has never hit anyone in his life. DD on the other hand is becoming increasingly more difficult. We’ve just returned from a 2 week holiday which has really highlighted how bad the situation has become. Several times a day she will have the most almighty tantrum - screaming at us and punching/scratching/biting as hard as she can. She really is trying to hurt us. When she does this I will often have to restrain her by holding her arms by her side. I do this as gently as possible but she will scream her head off that I am hurting her and then play the victim afterwards, which is obviously mortifying if we are out in public.

The trigger for this behaviour is generally some version of not getting what she wants. Eg wanting a certain snack or a toy in a shop, being stopped from running out into a road or climbing something dangerous, getting the wrong colour plate… it could be any minor thing. Basically she’s become the classic brat.

I don’t know where we’ve gone so wrong. I certainly don’t give in to her demands when she tantrums. We try to discipline her using immediate consequences, although that’s not always feasible depending on the situation. We also explain to her (when she is calm) that good behaviour will be rewarded whereas if she hits she will lose out / be punished. She agrees with this and seems to understand, but then just can’t seem to self regulate enough to remember it when the red mist descends. I thought about a sticker chart but again I can’t see her remembering about it in the moment. I’ve read many of the parenting books that get recommended on here. I haven’t tried ‘The Explosive Child’ yet but it’s next on my list.

Has anyone had a child who was like this at this age? Did they grow out of it? Do you have any advice?! 🙏

My DS is autistic and did have similarly intense meltdowns, but there are also children who are just "more intense" - and your DD may be one of those. Especially if she's a bit precocious; there can often be gaps between a child's academic intelligence and their emotional development that makes these response seem more out of place. Nothing she's doing is inappropriate for her age, and you can identify clear triggers for her behaviour. (With my DS, it would be the most minor thing - like getting water on a sleeve - at home after nursery that would trigger the 0-100.) There are also positives that come from being a child/person who feels things deeply and expresses those feelings.

Agree with the PP who said to give her a plan and set expectations for how things will go as much as possible e.g. "We're going into the shop and you can choose a chocolate bar, but we're not getting toys today;" "We're going to walk from the car to Tesco and you will need to hold mummy's hand the whole way. If you don't want to do that, you'll need to go in the buggy."

Also, pick battles - if she asks for a different colour plate reasonably calmly, just give it to her. I know it feels like you're giving in to demands, but sometimes it can help kids feel listened to. And does it really matter? Ditto, if she wants to wear a green t-shirt, or whatever. Children with seemingly big tempers often need control to feel safe - I was one and I'm still a but like this as an adult - so let her have control over things she can, and hold the line where an adult need to be in charge.

Remember with your DS, he wasn't being taken to things that maybe are a little less fun for him because he didn't have an older sibling - you catered to him. You may be expecting quite a lot of your DD and she may need different parenting. If you have a DP, can you divide and conquer so that your DD's days can be a bit quieter with one of you, while the other takes DS out?

Put Christmas Elf into your phone and then get somebody with that number to call you and pretend that they your daughter’s been put on the naughty list and she needs to buck up her ideas….

Thank you some good suggestions here. I’m definitely one for picking my battles, in fact I sometimes worry that in the past I’ve been a bit too permissive and capitulating in order to avoid a tantrum. I’ll be honest, DH can be bad with this sort of thing. He is a very calm man, but rather rigid in his expectations and would view something like swapping a plate as giving into demands. I will be showing him this thread.

It can be tricky sometimes as recently instead of just asking for something (which we would have allowed) she’ll go straight in for hitting, so then we are faced with the dilemma of rewarding the violent behaviour by giving her what she wants, or holding out on what is otherwise a fairly simple request. That’s why we’ve been talking to her in calm moments about how asking for something politely is much more likely to get a result than hitting. Doesn’t seem to be sinking in yet.

We do quite a lot of things separately with them at the weekends as DS does a lot of sport, and DD has her own things going on as well. I tried to take DD along to watch DS at one of his sporting fixtures the other week and it was a disaster. Learnt my lesson there!

Kids with regulation issues like OP's kid (and my kid) tend not to give a shit about that 😂 it doesn't help their behaviour. Only makes them push their feelings down further

I feel your pain OP. I had the same situation with DD2. DD1 is very calm and peaceful. It was a shock! I tried everything. Talking to her. Thinking step. Restraining her. She’s 15 now and still pretty volatile but rarely violent. We’re in the process of having an ASD assessment - suspect HPI. She’s had ongoing therapy since childhood … play therapy, psychodynamic therapy, specialist teen therapist. She’s seen psychologists. Essentially she just has a really short fuse 🤷🏼‍♀️ Of late she has been talking about her violent episodes in the past and she says that it was pure anger at not being allowed to do whatever she wanted to do or to have whatever she wanted to have. Two things that have helped were writing our ‘stay calm’ plans and her having an outlet for expression - she now writes her feelings down.